Will em dashes doom my child's applications?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid insists on using lots of em dashes in her essays.

She doesn't use ai in her writing--or if she does, she does it stealthily and well enough that I can't tell--but she looooves em dashes.

I have two concerns:

The milder one is that em dashes--with no spaces, like this--are a nakedly obvious "trick" for getting around word count limits. She says, nobody will care or notice that her essay is 253 words with three em dashes. I say, respect the word counts.

My more significant concern is that some readers will see well-written essays with plenty of em dashes, immediately think "gpt," and not give her a chance. Why bother even raising an eyebrow when there are plenty of other applications to read? She says, em dashes make her essays better and enhance readability--and that's what matters most.

Anyone have good info on this? Heard from any readers or AO's directly, for example?

Alternatively, please feel free to offer uninformed but nonetheless entertaining hot takes

What say you, DCUM: Are em dashes dooming her applications??

Does DD use em dashes in a grammatically incorrect way like you do?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My DD loves em dashes for word count reason. And "A/B" in place of "A and B" whenever appropriate. And "I'll" instead of "I will." Not sure if this will doom her. Hope not.

Em dashes are fine. The contractions are not.

Contractions make an essay more casual - which is what AO want.

- Former T20 reader

Agreed.

- Former T50 reader

Ditto!

- Former T5 Reader

Definitely

- Former T1 reader

Disagree.

- Former president of Harvard

We don’t care what you think, Larry Summers!

[Anonymous]

I am a professional writer, and I love em dashes! As a previous poster noted, contractions are more of an issue in academic writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD loves em dashes for word count reason. And "A/B" in place of "A and B" whenever appropriate. And "I'll" instead of "I will." Not sure if this will doom her. Hope not.

Em dashes are fine. The contractions are not.

Contractions make an essay more casual - which is what AO want.

- Former T20 reader

Agreed.


- Former T50 reader

Thank you both ! We has my kid take out em-dashes. We just didn’t want to worry it. He has contractions because they save word count and it sounds more like him anyway.

I read the other poster’s comment and had a mini panic attack.

[Anonymous]

No one cares. So long as she can write a complete sentence with a Capital letter at the start, and a period at the end, with a verb and noun in the middle somewhere, she's good to go.

[Anonymous]

Fwiw, DC used em dashes in her essays and just got into her SCEA school.

[Anonymous]

I’m still stuck on the head of Stanford admissions.

Do you mean Rick Shaw? He’s a dinosaur and probably only reads VIP cases at this point.

If you mean the IEC who throws around his time at Stanford, he was a reader for one year.

Link to your source?

[Anonymous]

I’m not a professional writer but I write a lot for my job and have always received complements for my writing. I loved using em-dashes. But now bc AI likes them too, (haha - I used a comma) I usually avoid them.

I also advised my kids’ to avoid them in their essays. They ignored me (which is fine). One got into his ED choice and the other was deferred. I really doubt it was the em dash that caused the deferral.

I also recommended avoiding contractions unless it for the style of the essay. I think it works in context.

Good luck to you and your daughter in finishing up her applications!

[Anonymous]

Just don’t use em dashes.

Even ChatGPT will avoid them if you ask it to.